ABSTRACT
The basis for the administration of law and justice in the Colony of Kenya may best be summed up in the words of the Kenya Colony Order in Council, 1921, which reads:-
"There shall be a Court of Record styled Her Majesty's Supreme Court of Kenya . . . with full jurisdiction, civil and criminal, over all persons and all matters in the Colonyl. . .. Subject to the other provisions of this Order, such civil and criminal jurisdiction shall, so far as circumstances admit, be exercised in conformity with the Civil Procedure and Penal Codes of India and the other Indian Acts which are in force in the Colony at the date of the commencement of this Order2 and subject thereto and so far as the same shall not extend or apply shall be exercised in conformity with the substance of the common law, the doctrines of equity and the statutes of general application in force in England ... (in 1897) and with the powers vested in and according to the procedure and practice observed by and before Courts of Justice and Justices of the Peace in England ... save in so far as (all these) ... may ... be modified, amended or replaced by other provisions in lieu thereof by or under the authority of any Order of Her Majesty in Council or by any Ordinance ... for the time being in force in the Colony: Provided always that the said common law doctrines of equity and the statutes of general application shall be in force in the Colony so far only as the circumstances of the Colony and its inhabitants permit and subject to such qualifications as local circumstances render necessary."3
